


Opia

by blueincandescence



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: F/M, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-29 00:58:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7664083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueincandescence/pseuds/blueincandescence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daniel takes a moment to let Peggy's accusation that she's invisible to him sink in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Opia

**Author's Note:**

> drabble prompt: peggysous + opia
> 
> tumblr: [blueincandescence](http://blueincandescence.tumblr.com)

* * *

  **Opia** _n. the ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable — their pupils glittering, bottomless and opaque — as if you were peering through a hole in the door of a house, able to tell that there’s someone standing there, but unable to tell if you’re looking in or looking out._ ([x](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com%2Fpost%2F37651224370%2Fopia&t=MWE1OTg0YTkwMGE2MGIyOTEwNjU5ZjU5MzhmMWUwYWQxYWJjZWEwZSx4NjNDZUR5MA%3D%3D))

* * *

 

Daniel tugs at his tie, slouches into his chair. His head is still ringing from the verbal lashing he’s just gotten.  _I’m invisible_ , she accused. Not just Thompson, not just Dooley. Peggy Carter accused him of not seeing her.

Peggy Carter striding through the office with her red hat, red lips. Peggy Carter with her feet up on her desk. Nylons ruler-straight at 9 a.m., twisted with the day’s exertion at 9 p.m. Peggy Carter, hands on her hips, leaning into an insult, a challenge, a smart damn point that he always backed her up on. 

Peggy Carter who declined an invitation for a drink so gracefully he almost forgot to be humiliated. A kid from nowhere, a man with limp, asking out Captain America’s girl. Her eyes were grieved, warm. Even from the corner of his eye, he saw that. 

_You think you know me, but I’ve never been more than what each of you has created._

Daniel Sousa being accused of not seeing Peggy Carter. A cosmic joke, if ever there was one. And the punchline is — she was goddamn right.

_The girl on the pedestal, transformed into some daft whore._

He contemplates the lower left-hand drawer of his desk and the bottle of whiskey tucked inside. He puts his head in his hands instead, winces into his palms. 

Daniel always saw Peggy from the corner of his eye, because that’s the only way he knows how to look at bright things. _Behaving like children_. _Shoddy police work._ He deserves worse insults. He treated the finest woman — finest agent, hell, finest person — he ever met like something to squint at.

Tilting back into his chair, Daniel forces himself to blink the office back into focus. He stares hard at the door to the interrogation room.

In there, after he collected his shame as best he could, Daniel looked Peggy square in the eyes. She only spared him a glance, but what became visible in those moments was his own stupidity. 

His face was not bathed in the light from her eyes because Peggy Carter’s eyes shine inward. 

Daniel may not know much else about her, but that seems like the only good place to start.

From the bottom right-hand drawer, he pulls out his notes on the Stark case. He spreads the evidence over his desk and looks it over with fresh eyes.

* * *

 


End file.
